Pig Skin? No Skin Without Registration.

Say what you will, but when it comes to tattoo regulation, you’ve got to hand it to the British. There’s a strictness to their form of regulation that might be too much for some, but for others like myself, it’s an insurance policy against bad news tattooists and scratchers. As a matter of fact, the British system is so no-nonsense that government officials in Darlington, England have fined 23-year-old Joseph Vasarhelyi for illegally practicing tattooing. That’s right, he was fined for simply practicing tattooing without a license and he wasn’t even practicing on human beings.

Vasarhelyi was practicing tattooing on pig skin with equipment that he had purchased over the internet. A concerned member of the public who knew what Vasarhelyi was up to contacted the Darlington Borough Council’s Environmental Health Team and reported the issue. Vasarhelyi was known to also tattoo at people’s homes, also without any sort of registration whatsoever. As a result, Vasarhelyi plead guilty to his charges and was fined £35 ($56) and was ordered to pay £200 ($325) in costs.

‘Darlington Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday that Vasarhelyi:

* Was not registered with Darlington, or any other council.

* He had bought his equipment from internet suppliers.

* He was untrained and had taught himself practicing on pigskin.

* His knowledge of sterilisation procedures were rudimentary and not sufficient to operate the business safely.’

This to me is exactly the sort of thing that proper regulation helps to prevent. That’s one less scratcher out there giving tattoo a bad name by potentially harming people.